Table of Contents

Natural Zombie

Natural Zombies are members of any race that for whatever reason naturally become zombies when they die. This is often an inherited, recessive genetic trait, but it's also been seen as a divine curse placed on the defilers of temples to necromantic gods.

Natural Zombies, unlike wizard-created zombies, retain their mental skills and abilities and are free-willed. They're also extremely durable, requiring total bodily destruction (-10xHP) to die. They start out just like any other mortal, appearing completely normal until they receive some kind of normally-lethal wound, at which point their zombie nature becomes apparent. Instead of killing them, the wound results in zombification.

Natural Zombies often treat severed limbs (and occasionally severed heads) by sewing them back on. This can result in a partial zombie state, as the reattached body part is now dead and zombie, but the rest of them is not.

They have Unkillable 1, but must still make death rolls as normal, to determine when they transition into their zombie state, eventually automatically happening at -5xHP.

Damage to each limb (and the head) must be tracked separately from torso damage. Make separate death rolls for each, but torso death automatically indicates full body death.

Turning back to normal after zombification is not easy. This requires the use of life restoration abilities, such as the Raise Dead spell (for full zombification) or the Regrow Limb spell (for a limb or the head).

Natural Zombies are usually ignored by regular skeletons and zombies unless ordered to do otherwise by a controlling necromancer.

These characters can undergo a partial process of mummification (no organ removal) to gain a greater degree of longevity and to restore intellectual capacity. This step is often taken to prevent the eventual degradation into a mindless skeleton. This does bear one drawback, however: they become very dry and combustible.

Variations

Aged

Natural Zombies immediately die and permanently zombify upon reaching their aging threshold, instead of aging like normal. Attempts to reverse the process beyond this point will fail. The Zombie Form template takes the place of their Living Form and Alternate Form (Zombie Form) should be removed. Alternate Form (Mummy Form) should have the Limitation related to switching it off removed and the base value reduced to 1/5 normal, because it's now a one-way process: they can no longer be restored to life.

Infectious

This rare variety of zombie is actually a carrier of a magical, infectious disease! Add Infectious Attack and Uncontrollable Appetite (Humanoid Flesh) to the racial template's Constant Traits. The disease has an incubation period of 3d hours before it has any effect.

Undiscovered

In this case, the zombie is hiding their unusual nature. Remove their Social Stigma and replace with an appropriate Secret, adjusting Alternate Form's value appropriately

Unknown

The Zombie is unaware of their nature. Treat this the same as Undiscovered, but in addition, remove Odious Racial Habit and On the Edge. These last two Disadvantages represent the character knowing and accepting their nature. Finally, becoming a zombie upon death should require a fright check. A fun variation of this could be a character that's become delusional about their zombie state, constantly insisting that they're normal and nothing is wrong.